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fernandokng

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At what levels do you keep your nitrate at?

I'm battling between feeding my fishes and corals so they get the nutrient they need, while maintaning low nitrate levels.

I don't want to starve the tank either, as neither will be happy then.

I'm currently at 10ppm on Salifert kit (even after a water change on Saturday). I was lower before (at 2ppm), but I decided to up my feedings.
 

House of Laughter

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Ossining, NY
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Fernando,

successful sps keeping is a relative term - some are successful one week and not so lucky the following week.

As for the nitrates, if you are battling them, something is amiss - I stopped testing for nitrates 4 months after my system was established as I knew the system was stable enought to export the level of nitrates that I had. But I also have a shallow sand bed in the display as well as a remote DSB, refuge with chaeto, large skimmer and am diligent about my water changes -

Since nitrates are relative to the ability of the system to export them, I'd be curious to know what else is affecting your system? Skiimer? refuge? nitrate reactor? other export method?

can we get some more system detail.

House
 

fernandokng

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Jim - I guess I would be more interested in what the absolute ranges are in regards to nitrate levels (less concern on the exporting side of things). Is 0 nitrate achieveable? Even if achieveable, is that something you would want, knowing that sps need nutrients? The question is - Is there optimal level (range)? Or would the generic answer apply here: every system is different.

Here just a quick spot check on my parameters and system detail (System is about 8 months old, but I'm still tweaking things here and there all the time, so I don't have confidence that is purely stable yet)
System:
58G RR, 20 gallon sump, approximately 70 gallon total volume.
EuroReef RS 135 skimmer
Fuge (currently in the beginning phases of culturing mangroves. they are still seeds without roots, so the export capabilities is limited, if not, nonexisting at this time - probably another 3 more months before it will actually be useful)
Flow: Wavy Sea, Koralia 3, Koralia 1, MaxiJet 600 with Mod.
Lights: (2) HQI 150W DE 14000K Odyssea bulbs, ARO Ballasts

Parameters:
Nitrate 10 (salifert)
calk 450 (elos)
alk 9 (elos)
mag 1300 (elos)
temp 81-84 degrees (digital read)
sal 1.025 (refractometer)
phosphate - don't test, since most kits unreliable with the exception of hanna. It takes me about 5-6 days before I clean the film glass, which is not too bad. I use that as my gauge.

Livestock:
Tang
Clown
Fire
Goby
Very Few corals (sps, lps).
50lb live rock
2 inch sand
 

ZANYMASTER

Old School Reefer
Location
Bethpage,NY
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Some sps like nutrients for some reason.My nitrates are usually zero thanks to the fuge and macro algae and water changes but phosphates should be close to zero being that it's almost impossible to keep it at zero since we feed our tanks.
 

jhale

ReefsMagazine!
Location
G.V NYC
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0 nitrates would actually be a bad thing the animals would starve.
As Randy stated corals actually need some nitrates to live. they are present on the reef, but due to the great number of organisms the nitrate uptake is extremely fast, so what's left in the water column at any given time is very little.
In our tanks we have no where near the volume of water or the number of animals absorbing the nitrates so it's up to you to determine the level to maintain them at.
I will say that SPS are tolerant over a wide range, but they do insist on keeping the water quality consistent. Any fast changes can cause horrible consequences for SPS, they can not handle large swings in water changes, so if you change something do it slowly. That's THE best advice I can give when keeping SPS. The times I did not follow this advice I often lost corals.
 

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